Timely Comics

Timely Comics is the common name for the group of corporations that was the earliest comic book arm of American publisher Martin Goodman, and the entity that would evolve by the 1960s to become Marvel Comics.[1]

Founded in 1939, during the era called the Golden Age of comic books, "Timely" was the umbrella name for the comics division of pulp magazine publisher Goodman, whose business strategy involved having a multitude of corporate entities all producing the same product.[1] The company first publication in 1939 used Timely Publications,[2][3] based at his existing company in the McGraw-Hill Building at 330 West 42nd Street in New York City. In 1942, it moved to the 14th floor of the Empire State Building, where it remained until 1951. In 2016, Marvel announced that Timely Comics would be the name of a new imprint of low-priced reprint comics.

Creation

In 1939, with the emerging medium of comic books proving hugely popular, and the first superheroes setting the trend, pulp-magazine publisher Martin Goodman founded Timely Publications, basing it at his existing company in the McGraw-Hill Building at 330 West 42nd Street in New York City. Goodman – whose official titles were editor, managing editor, and business manager, with Abraham Goodman officially listed as publisher[3] – contracted with the newly formed comic-book "packager" Funnies, Inc. to supply material.[2]

Also included were Al Anders' Western hero the Masked Raider; the jungle lord Ka-Zar the Great,[5] with Ben Thompson beginning a five-issue adaptation of the story "King of Fang and Claw" by Bob Byrd in Goodman's pulp magazine Ka-Zar #1 (Oct. 1936);[6] the non-continuing-character story "Jungle Terror", featuring adventurer Ken Masters, drawn and possibly written by Art Pinajian under the quirky pseudonym "Tohm Dixon" or "Tomm Dixon" (with the published signature smudged); "Now I'll Tell One", five single-panel, black-and-white gag cartoons by Fred Schwab, on the inside front cover; and a two-page prose story by Ray Gill, "Burning Rubber", about auto racing. A painted cover by veteran science-fiction pulp artist Frank R. Paul featured the Human Torch, looking much different from the interior story.[4][7]

That initial comic, cover-dated October 1939, quickly sold out 80,000 copies, prompting Goodman to produce a second printing, cover-dated November 1939. The latter is identical except for a black bar over the October date in the inside-front-cover indicia, and the November date added at the end.[4] That sold approximately 800,000 copies.[8] With a hit on his hands, Goodman began assembling an in-house staff, hiring Funnies, Inc. writer-artist Joe Simon as editor. Simon brought along his collaborator, artist Jack Kirby, followed by artist Syd Shores.[9] Goodman then formed Timely Comics, Inc., beginning with comics cover-dated April 1941 or Spring 1941.[10]

There is evidence that "Red Circle Comics" – a name that would be used for an unrelated imprint of Archie Comics in the 1970s and 1980s – may have been a term in use as Goodman prepared to publish his first comic book. Historian Les Daniels, referring to Goodman's pulp-magazine line, describes the name Red Circle as "a halfhearted attempt to establish an identity for what was usually described loosely as 'the Goodman group' [made] when a new logo was adopted: a red disk surrounded by a black ring that bore the phrase 'A Red Circle Magazine.' But it appeared only intermittently, when someone remembered to put it on [a pulp magazine's] cover.[11] Historian Jess Nevins, conversely, writes that, "Timely Publications [was how] Goodman's group [of companies] had become known; before this, it was known as 'Red Circle' because of the logo that Goodman had put on his pulp magazines...."[12] The Grand Comics Database identifies 23 issues of Goodman comic books from 1944 to 1959 with Red Circle, Inc. branding,[13] and a single 1948 issue under Red Circle Magazines Corp.[14]

Golden Age of Comic Books

Marvel Comics was rechristened Marvel Mystery Comics with issue #2 (Dec. 1939); the magazine would continue under that title through #92 (June 1949) before becoming Marvel Tales through #159 (Aug. 1957). Timely began publishing additional series, beginning with Daring Mystery Comics #1 (Jan. 1940), Mystic Comics #1 (March 1940), Red Raven Comics #1 (Aug. 1940), The Human Torch #2 (premiering Fall 1940 with no cover date and having taken over the numbering from the unsuccessful Red Raven), and Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941). Going on sale in December 1940, a year before the bombing of Pearl Harbor and already showing the hero punching Hitler, that first issue sold nearly one million copies.[8]

Just as Captain America had his teenage sidekick Bucky and DC Comics' Batman had Robin, the Human Torch acquired a young partner, Toro, in the first issue of the Torch's own magazine. The Young Allies—one of several "kid gangs" popular in comics at the time—debuted under the rubric the Sentinels of Liberty in a text story in Captain America Comics #4 (June 1941) before making it to the comics pages themselves the following issue, and then eventually into their own title.

Seeing a natural "fire and water" theme, Timely was responsible for comic books' first major crossover, with a two-issue battle between the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner that spanned Marvel Mystery Comics #8–9—telling the story from the two characters' different perspectives.

After the Simon & Kirby team moved to DC late 1941, having produced Captain America Comics through issue #10 (Jan. 1942), Al Avison and Syd Shores became regular pencilers on the title, with one generally inking over the other. Stan Lee (né Stanley Lieber), a cousin of Goodman's by marriage who had been serving as an assistant since 1939, at age 16,[n 1] was promoted to interim editor just shy of his 19th birthday. Showing a knack for the business, Lee stayed on for decades, eventually becoming Marvel Comics' publisher in 1972. Fellow Timely staffer Vincent Fago would substitute during Lee's World War IImilitary service.

Funny animals, and people

The superheroes were the products of what Timely referred to as the "adventure" bullpen. The company also developed an "animator" bullpen creating such movie tie-in and original funny animal comics as Terrytoons Comics, Mighty Mouse, All Surprise Comics, Super Rabbit Comics, Funny Frolics, and Funny Tunes, renamed Animated Funny Comic-Tunes. Former Fleischer Studios animator Fago, who joined Timely in 1942, headed this group, which consisted through the years of such writer/artists as Hart, Gantz, Klein, Platt, Rule, Sekowsky, Frank Carin (né Carino), Bob Deschamps, Chad Grothkopf, Pauline Loth, Jim Mooney, Moss Worthman a.k.a. Moe Worth, and future Mad magazine cartoonists Dave Berg and Al Jaffee.

Features from this department include "Dinky" and "Frenchy Rabbit" in Terrytoons Comics; "Floop and Skilly Boo" in Comedy Comics; "Posty the Pelican Postman" in Krazy Komics and other titles; "Krazy Krow" in that character's eponymous comic; "Tubby an' Tack", in various comics; and the most popular of these features, Jaffee's "Ziggy Pig and Silly Seal" and Hart's "Super Rabbit", the cover stars of many different titles. Timely also published one of humor cartoonistBasil Wolverton's best-known features, Powerhouse Pepper. The first issue, cover-dated January 1943, bore no number, and protagonist Pepper looked different from his more familiar visualization (when the series returned for four issues, May–Nov. 1948) as the bullet-headed naif in the striped turtleneck sweater.

Additionally, Timely in 1944 and 1945 initiated a sitcom selection of titles aimed at female readers: Millie the Model, Tessie the Typist and Nellie the Nurse. The company continued to pursue female readers later in the decade with such superheroines as Sun Girl; the Sub-Mariner spin-off Namora; and Venus, the Roman goddess of love, posing as a human reporter.[18]Patsy Walker, Millie the Model, Tessie the Typist and other Timely humor titles also included Harvey Kurtzman's "Hey Look!" one-pagers in several issues.[19][20]

Yet after the wartime boom years – when superheroes had been new and inspirational, and comics provided cheap entertainment for millions of children, soldiers and others – the post-war era found superheroes falling out of fashion. Television and mass market paperback books now also competed for readers and leisure time.[22] Goodman began turning to a wider variety of genres than ever, emphasizing horror, Westerns, teen humor, crime and war comics, and introducing female heroes to try to attract girls and young women to read comics. In 1946, for instance, the superhero title All Select Comics was changed to Blonde Phantom Comics, and now starred a masked secretary who fought crime in an evening gown. That same year, Kid Komics eliminated its stars and became Kid Movie Comics. All Winners Comics became All Teen Comics in January 1947. Timely eliminated virtually all its staff positions in 1948.

Time after Timely

The precise end-point of the Golden Age of comics is vague, but for Timely, at least, it appears to have ended with the cancellation of Captain America Comics at issue #75 (Feb. 1950) – by which time the series had already been Captain America's Weird Tales for two issues, with the finale featuring merely anthological horror/suspense tales and no superheroes. Sub-Mariner Comics had already ended with #32 (June 1949), and the company's flagship title, Marvel Mystery Comics, starring the Human Torch, ended that same month with #92, becoming the horror anthology Marvel Tales beginning with issue #93 (Aug. 1949). Goodman began using the globe logo of the Atlas News Company,[23] the newsstand-distribution company he owned, on comics cover-dated Nov. 1951.[24]

In 2015, Marvel registered the trademark "Timely Comics".[25] The following year, Marvel announced that Timely Comics would be the name of a new imprint of low-priced reprint comics.[26]

Marvel branding

Publisher Martin Goodman's business strategy involved having his various magazines and comic books published by a number of companies all operating out of the same office and with the same staff.[1] One of these shell companies under which Timely Comics was published was named Marvel Comics by at least Marvel Mystery Comics #55 (May 1944). As well, some comics' covers, such as All Surprise Comics #12 (Winter 1946–47), were labeled "A Marvel Magazine" many years before Goodman would formally adopt the name in 1961.[27]

Timely characters and creators

List of characters making multiple appearances, either in Timely Comics solely or in Timely and subsequent companies Atlas Comics and Marvel Comics.

Notes

^ Lee's account of how he began working for Marvel's predecessor, Timely, has varied. He has said in lectures and elsewhere that he simply answered a newspaper ad seeking a publishing assistant, not knowing it involved comics, let alone his cousin Jean's husband, Martin Goodman:

I applied for a job in a publishing company ... I didn't even know they published comics. I was fresh out of high school, and I wanted to get into the publishing business, if I could. There was an ad in the paper that said, "Assistant Wanted in a Publishing House." When I found out that they wanted me to assist in comics, I figured, 'Well, I'll stay here for a little while and get some experience, and then I'll get out into the real world.' ... I just wanted to know, 'What do you do in a publishing company?' How do you write? ... How do you publish? I was an assistant. There were two people there named Joe Simon and Jack Kirby—Joe was sort-of the editor/artist/writer, and Jack was the artist/writer. Joe was the senior member. They were turning out most of the artwork. Then there was the publisher, Martin Goodman... And that was about the only staff that I was involved with. After a while, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby left. I was about 17 years old [sic], and Martin Goodman said to me, 'Do you think you can hold down the job of editor until I can find a real person?' When you're 17, what do you know? I said, 'Sure! I can do it!' I think he forgot about me, because I stayed there ever since.[15]

However, in his 2002 autobiography, Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee (cited under References, below), he says:

My uncle, Robbie Solomon, told me they might be able to use someone at a publishing company where he worked. The idea of being involved in publishing definitely appealed to me. ... So I contacted the man Robbie said did the hiring, Joe Simon, and applied for a job. He took me on and I began working as a gofer for eight dollars a week....

Joe Simon, in his 1990 autobiography The Comic Book Makers (cited under References, below), gives the account slightly differently: "One day [Goodman's relative known as] Uncle Robbie came to work with a lanky 17-year-old in tow. 'This is Stanley Lieber, Martin's wife's cousin,' Uncle Robbie said. 'Martin wants you to keep him busy.'"

In an appendix, however, Simon appears to reconcile the two accounts. He relates a 1989 conversation with Lee:

Lee: "I've been saying this [classified-ad] story for years, but apparently it isn't so. And I can't remember because I['ve] said it so long now that I believe it."

...
Simon: "Your Uncle Robbie brought you into the office one day and he said, 'This is Martin Goodman's wife's nephew.' [sic] ... You were seventeen years old."

Lee: "Sixteen and a half!"

Simon: "Well, Stan, you told me seventeen. You were probably trying to be older.... I did hire you."

References

^ abcDaniels, Les (1991). Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics. New York: Harry N. Abrams. pp. 27 & 32–33. ISBN 0-8109-3821-9. "Timely Publications became the name under which Goodman first published a comic book line. He eventually created a number of companies to publish comics ... but Timely was the name by which Goodman's Golden Age comics were known." "Marvel wasn't always Marvel; in the early 1940s the company was known as Timely Comics, and some covers bore this shield."

The All Winners Squad is a fictional superhero team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The company's first such team, it first appeared in All Winners Comics #19 (Fall 1946), published by Marvel predecessor Timely Comics during the period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books.

While the comic-book title has no hyphen, Marvel, on its website version of the company's The Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe: Teams 2005, spells the team name "All-Winners Squad" with a hyphen, as do independent sources.

The Angel (Thomas Halloway, often shortened to Tom Halloway) is a fictional character, a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by artist Paul Gustavson and an unconfirmed writer during the Golden Age of Comic Books, the Angel first appeared in Marvel Comics #1 (Oct. 1939), the first publication of Marvel Comics' predecessor, Timely Comics.

The Angel is a non-superpowered detective who nonetheless wore a superhero costume.

Atlas Comics is the 1950s comic-book publishing label that evolved into Marvel Comics. Magazine and paperback novel publisher Martin Goodman, whose business strategy involved having a multitude of corporate entities, used Atlas as the umbrella name for his comic-book division during this time. Atlas evolved out of Goodman's 1940s comic-book division, Timely Comics, and was located on the 14th floor of the Empire State Building.

This company is distinct from the 1970s comic-book company, also founded by Goodman, that is known as Atlas/Seaboard Comics.

Betsy Ross is Captain America's early love interest and supporting character in Marvel Comics appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, during the 1930-1940s period known to historians and collectors as the Golden Age of Comic Books. She then debuted as the superheroine Golden Girl in Captain America Comics #66.

Black Widow is the name of several fictional characters appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Most of these versions exist in Marvel's main shared universe, known as the Marvel Universe.

The Blonde Phantom (Louise Grant Mason) is a fictional masked crime fighter appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created for Marvel predecessor Timely Comics, she first appeared in All Select Comics #11 (cover-dated Fall 1946), during the 1940s period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books.

The Destroyer is the name of three fictional superheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. One of the earliest creations of major comics-industry figure Stan Lee, the original incarnation first appeared in the 1940s during what historians and fans call the Golden Age of comic books. Modern incarnations created by Roy Thomas and Frank Robbins appeared in Invaders #18 (July 1977), and Invaders #26 (March 1978). The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe clarifies that all three versions of the character are considered canon.

The Human Torch, also known as Jim Hammond (originally, Hamond), is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-artist Carl Burgos, he first appeared in Marvel Comics #1 (Oct.1939), published by Marvel's predecessor, Timely Comics.

The "Human" Torch was actually an android created by scientist Phineas Horton. He possessed the ability to surround himself with fire and control flames. In his earliest appearances, he was portrayed as a science fiction monstrosity, but quickly became a hero and adopted a secret identity as a police officer for the New York City Police Department.

The Human Torch was one of Timely Comics' three signature characters, along with Captain America and Namor the Sub-Mariner. Like many superheroes, the Human Torch fell into obscurity by the 1950s. In 1961, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby repurposed his name and powers for a new character, Johnny Storm, a member of the Fantastic Four (who was actually human-mutate). Unlike Captain America and the Sub-Mariner, the original Human Torch has had only a small presence in the post-1950s Marvel comic books and is closely associated with the Golden Age. In 2012, Hammond was ranked 28th in IGN's list of "The Top 50 Avengers".

Miss America (Madeline Joyce Frank) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. She first appeared in Marvel Mystery Comics #49 (Nov. 1943), and was created by writer Otto Binder and artist Al Gabriele for Timely Comics, the 1940s precursor of Marvel, in the period fans and historians call the Golden Age of Comic Books.

Toro is the name of two fictional characters appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The first Toro was originally featured in Timely Comics and later as a Marvel Comics superhero who appeared as the partner of the original Human Torch.

Venus is an American romance comic book published by Timely Comics in the United States. Running for 19 issues from 1948 until 1952 it transformed over its run from its romance led stories to finish as a science fiction and horror anthology. It is noted for introducing the Marvel character Venus and an early incarnation of Loki who would later become the nemesis of Marvel character Thor. The final three issues were published through Atlas Comics.

This article is about the original 1940s Vision. For the modern-day comic-book character, see Vision (Marvel Comics).The Vision (Aarkus) is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by the writer Joe Simon and artist Jack Kirby, the character first appeared during the Golden Age of comic books in Marvel Mystery Comics #13 (Nov. 1940), published by Marvel predecessor Timely Comics.

The Witness is the name of at least three fictional characters appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Of these, the first was published by Timely Comics in the 1940s and the final two by its successor company, Marvel Comics.

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